


The Only Pain Feared

by Boomchick



Series: Tumblr Prompts [12]
Category: Final Fantasy VII Remake (Video Game 2020)
Genre: But this time in a perfect post-cannon, Eligor boss fight, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, M/M, and Sephiroth is there
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-07
Updated: 2020-06-07
Packaged: 2021-03-04 02:00:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,450
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24585748
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Boomchick/pseuds/Boomchick
Summary: A oneshot prompt fill from TumblrCloud and Sephiroth face an awful (and familiar) monster.
Relationships: Sephiroth/Cloud Strife
Series: Tumblr Prompts [12]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1774831
Comments: 2
Kudos: 93





	The Only Pain Feared

**Author's Note:**

> One of a series of prompts written on Tumblr for those who are supporting the BLM movement. This one was requested by an anonymous user who asked: "Could I request established sefikura reuniting after a difficult battle? In a perfect sephiroth didnt go insane universe 😂"
> 
> If you've donated, protested, or otherwise supported black lives, you can come and make a request too! https://boomchickfanfiction.tumblr.com/

In retrospect, they shouldn’t have come to the Train Graveyard with this crew, Cloud thought. But hell, hindsight was 2020. And he hadn’t realized that that damn Eligor hadn’t really bitten the dust last time.

He felt sick, his hand still extended to where Sephiroth had been a moment ago, as if he was just seeing things wrong. As if any moment he’d be back.

“Cloud.” Aerith said, voice high and tight with fear.

“Hey,” Tifa said, squeezing his shoulder. “We got Aerith back. We’ll get him back too!”

“Right!” Aerith added, pulling free her staff. “Let’s go, Cloud!”

“R-right.” Cloud stuttered, trying not to think about the fact that it had been SEPHIROTH Eligor took. Not him and all his weighing terror from those years trapped under the mansion falling apart. Not Aerith, whose fear it had targeted the last time they were here. Not Tifa, who’d had more than her fair share of terror and sorrow in her life.

Sephiroth.

Even as they sprinted deeper into the train graveyard looking for him, Cloud found himself thinking back over Chadley’s research from last time. This creature that fed on fear. What on earth could Sephiroth fear?

They found him. Thank the gods, they found him. Found him on his knees, staring blankly ahead, his hands limp in his laps. The smoke surrounding him as Eligor circled him, feasting. Because Cloud could see it now. His expression wasn’t blank. HE sprinted forward, feeling like he was moving through molasses.

Sephiroth stared directly forwards, at nothing. He looked hollowed out. He lifted one hand, as if in a plea.

“Please,” his words barely reached Cloud. Eligor reared up behind him, disasterous hooves ready to crush him into the ground.

“Don’t go?” Sephiroth begged, his brows twisting, his hand lifting to the vision only he could see.

Cloud tackled him, and felt the ground shake as the tumbled over it in the wake of Eligor’s attack.

Sephiroth struggled, just for a moment, against Cloud’s arms. Then his dazed eyes blinked into focus. The moment he saw who it was, Cloud found himself crushed in his arms. Held tight as Sephiroth shuddered, flat on his back under Cloud, shaking even as the monster screamed it’s frustration.

“Get up,” Cloud urged. “We have to fight.”

“Don’t go.” Sephiroth gasped softly, still sounding hollow. His hands tightened, bruising and desperate.

Tifa’s fighting scream announced from nearby that the monster would have its attention elsewhere a moment. Followed immediately by Aerith’s sweet voice ringing out ‘Eyes on me, you fucking asshole!’

“It’s okay,” Cloud whispered, taking the moment rather than pulling away. The others would keep them safe a moment. “Sephiroth. Whatever it showed you, I’m not leaving. I’m right here.”

Sephiroth pressed his face to Cloud’s chest, and Cloud wrapped his arms around his head, wondering with a sinking terror what Sephiroth had seen. What had shaken him so badly. What he’d missed. Sephiroth was NEVER afraid. Never had been.

“Come on.” Cloud said, shaking him lightly, looking up to where Aerith was casting a barrier around herself to stop Eligor’s vicious hooves. “We have to help them. After, I’ll be right with you. I promise.”

Sephiroth’s hands released him all at once, as if he’d been burned. He scrambled just a moment, pushing himself to his feet, stumbling half a step. He shook his head, taking a shaking breath.

“Take cover if you see it charging a laser attack,” Cloud advised. “And watch out for its charges. We’ve had to deal with it before.”

“Got it,” Sephiroth said, and if he’d ever sounded hollow in his life, it was gone now. Just clean, blank competence as he slid into stance and then blurred into motion. The blade of the weaponsmith’s latest katana Kenkuro was so dark it was almost invisible as he swung it.

Cloud pushed himself into motion as well, more than happy to cut down Eligor’s new incarnation with as much fury as he had when it had dragged Aerith away from them all those years ago.

It fell more easily than it had then. Cloud watched it dissolve, still panting. He looked up to Sephiroth. Found him staring down at the darkness, his body heaving with every breath. He couldn’t have been that exhausted though, Cloud thought, though he was panting slightly. He looked over to check on Tifa and Aerith, and found them both scowling at him. He frowned back, shrugging at them both. In return they both pointed to Sephiroth insistently.

Let it never be said Cloud couldn’t take a hint. At least, not once it was literally shoved into his face.

He walked slowly over to Sephiroth, sheathing his sword on his back.

“You get hit?” He asked, awakening the cure materia on his bracer.

“I’m fine.” Sephiroth replied, not lifting his head.

Cloud cast the cure on him anyhow, just to be safe. It was unnerving, seeing Sephiroth like this. He was usually so above it all. Usually only came down to the ground with the rest of them when he realized he was leaving them behind. Sometimes… Sometimes in the past it had taken a long time.

“It did that to Aerith too.” He offered after a second, edging a touch closer. “Showed her things she was afraid of. It feeds on–”

“I as not afraid.” Sephiroth spat, lifting furious eyes to Cloud.

Cloud blinked at him, staying exactly where he was for a moment before taking a slow step forward.

“Okay,” Cloud said, lifting a hand to rest on Sephiroth’s cheek. “But you know I’m not going to be upset at you for being afraid. Right?”

Sephiroth’s eyes were tense and wild. But they settled slowly as Cloud stroked his thumb over his cheek, then fell closed completely with a slow, heavy sigh. He stepped forward, and Cloud found himself hugging his boyfriend for the second time that night, though usually it would be months between non-sexual embraces for them. They just weren’t touchy people…

“I was back in the labs.” He whispered into Cloud’s shirt. “Watching… Watching Gast leave. Only it wasn’t just a memory. It was… I saw Zack, and Aerith and Tifa, Barret… Nanaki and Reeve– Even Yuffie and Vincent. And… And you. You were all…”

He took a shaking breath. Cloud held him tighter. Tangled his fingers in his hair.

“I keep wondering,” Sephiroth managed, though it sounded like he was speaking past a lump in his throat, trying to keep from crying. “When the next person is going to leave me. Am I going to wonder that forever? Just because of Gast?”

“I don’t know.” Cloud whispered, closing his eyes tightly and pressing closer to Sephiroth.

He’d known he had some issues. They’d all seen how he unraveled at Icicle Inn, seeing the video footage of a man he’d thought of like a father, who’d left to be a father to someone else. And had died for it.

“All I can do is keep proving you wrong.” Cloud whispered, stroking Sephiroth’s hair, even as he took a step back, looking up into his lover’s troubled face. “Will that be enough?”

Sephiroth stared at him. Clung to him. The bruises he’d left on Cloud’s back had already healed, but Cloud could still feel them. That desperation with which Sephiroth had clung to him.

“Of course.” He whispered, shaking his head a little. “Of course. More than enough, Cloud…”

“Good.” Cloud said, reaching up to stroke Sephiroth’s face gently once more. The man couldn’t cry, but Cloud knew he would have been. It felt right, to touch him like he would have if his tears had been able to escape. “You okay to keep going? The others are about to explode if they can’t check on you, I think.”

Sephiroth lifted his head, and Tifa and Aerith seemed to take that as all the permission they needed. They sprinted over, Aerith launching herself at him and squeezing him tightly, and Tifa putting a hand on his shoulder.

“Found you,” Aerith whispered to Sephiroth, and Cloud wished that Sephiroth understood what she meant like he and Tifa did. He’d fill him in later.

They walked on together, and Sephiorth gamely put up with Aerith holding one of his hands. 'To keep you from getting lost again!’

After she put it that way, Cloud had rather sheepishly taken his other hand and held it as they walked. Sephiroth accepted that with slightly more grumbling, as it meant that he had no free hands to fight with initially. But Cloud didn’t mind his annoyed words. He could feel Sephiroth’s hand. Squeezing his fingers tightly, as if to remind himself that Cloud was there beside him.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading, and for the request!  
> Please donate to https://atlsolidarity.org/ if you can to support my local BLM movement, or find the organization closest to you and support them!


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